Even if the dragon wasn’t there, unless you have reserves to counter the Dothraki and allow your men to reform their shattered lines without being cut down like so much wheat, no.
Author: stevenattewell
RFTIT Weeklyish Roundup!
Hey folks! Work on Samwell I is continuing (10k+ words now! Done with the Fist and working up to Sam the Slayer.) but isn’t quite ready yet. Big news about the books, the Season 7 finale is this Sunday, but in the meantime, we’ve got a ton of good stuff on the Tumblrs: ASOIAF: Widows and escheat. How were marriages arranged? Part I Part II Why I think Rhaegar married Lyanna polygamously.…
What kind of pose do you think Baelor’s statue in front of the great sept is striking?
Probably like this:
Sparrows and Lollards: The Historical Parallel
A few weeks back I promised @poorquentyn that I’d write up that comparison between the English heretics known as Lollards, their connection with the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, and the Sparrows of ASoIaF. It took a bit longer than I’d hoped, but as promised, and for your reading pleasure, the case for why the Lollards and the Peasants’ Revolt is the strongest parallel we’ve got here, and their similarities – theological and political.
I’d also like to thank @meddlingwithdragons for her assistance with this essay.
Fascinating!
So if John Ball isn’t considered a Lollard any more, what is he considered: a sui generis heretic? An orthodox Catholic who looked for religious grounding for his political beliefs?
Because “when Adam delve and Eve span, who was then the gentle man” is pretty unambiguous as a statement of religious radical populism, imho.
I was pretty limited in what I could get my hands on, but that shift to considering Lollard radicalism as being almost entirely confined to reorganising the church rather than society at large was quite distinct, especially amongst the church historians I read.
That seemed to have knocked Ball out of the “true Lollard” camp for those scholars, and into “Lollard influence” and “Lollard sympathies.” Too much talking about gentlemen, not enough about the eucharist. They didn’t bother re-categorising him.
Didn’t bother…
I really hate scholarship that’s that narrowly focused.
Sparrows and Lollards: The Historical Parallel
A few weeks back I promised @poorquentyn that I’d write up that comparison between the English heretics known as Lollards, their connection with the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, and the Sparrows of ASoIaF. It took a bit longer than I’d hoped, but as promised, and for your reading pleasure, the case for why the Lollards and the Peasants’ Revolt is the strongest parallel we’ve got here, and their similarities – theological and political.
I’d also like to thank @meddlingwithdragons for her assistance with this essay.
Fascinating!
So if John Ball isn’t considered a Lollard any more, what is he considered: a sui generis heretic? An orthodox Catholic who looked for religious grounding for his political beliefs?
Because “when Adam delve and Eve span, who was then the gentle man” is pretty unambiguous as a statement of religious radical populism, imho.
Book/Kickstarter Announcement!
Big news on the book front! If you’re a Kickstarter backer you probably already heard this, but…
Why does Obara hate Oldtown so much?
It’s a traditional target of Dornish raids due to proximity to the Red Mountains, so you can get there and get back relatively quickly, compared to attacking Old Oak or Goldengrove or Bitterbridge.
is it safe to assume that Beric Dondarion’s role in the north is entirely a show invention, or is there any reason within the text to believe that he’s coming back post-stoneheart?
The former. Beric is dead for good in the books, and not coming back.
Here’s why I think it’s safe to assume this:
- in the post-episode bits and interviews about the show, the showrunners have made a big deal about needing the dragon to die then working backwards from there and hitting on the rescue mission.
- as we’ve seen with Craster’s Keep and Hardhome (and sort of the Battle of the Bastards, although that’s more a mix of this phenomenon with the Battle of Ice from the books), the showrunners really like doing action scenes with Kit Harrington and will invent stuff out of whole cloth to make that happen.
- the Wight Hunt had a lot of similarities to some of those invented scenes:
- they involve a bunch of named characters in a situation that would normally involve a huge body count, but only redshirts die (except for Thoros) so there’s no real impact to the plot, as far as characters not being alive who they need to do stuff later.
- they are often circular in terms of motion: Jon goes to Craster’s Keep and then comes back to the Wall, Jon goes to Hardhome and comes and then comes back to the Wall, and now Jon goes to near Eastwatch and then comes back to the Wall. This way, rather than leaving our protagonist in a new location as their status quo (like Dany capturing Meereen), the main characters are back where they need to be to do the rest of the plot.
- they often involve some impressive spectacle in terms of CGI: Hardhome gave us lots of wights, this gave us lots of wights plus dragons, so it’s an escalation from Season 5.
- It also involves a lot of characters who are unlikely to be in the same place at the same time in the books. Sandor is at peace on the Quiet Isle, Beric’s dead for good this time, Thoros and Gendry are with Lady Stoneheart whose plot was given to Arya, Tormund is at the Wall, Jon’s dead, Jorah is still in Essos. It would be very awkward indeed to get them to the Wall together while everything else is going on in time for this mission.
- Finally, the whole get-a-wight-to-convince-Cersei thing won’t work with how the books handle the wight rules. In the books, wights stop reanimating when they get south of the Wall and rot away into nothingness. While the show dropped this storyline in Season 2, in the books Alliser Thorne is sent on a mission to convince the Iron Throne of the threat to the Wall and fails.
This is going to sound stupid, but what is the spirit turtle? (You listed it with the ghost grass in signs of the coming apocalypse).
Sorry, remembered it wrong, it’s the phantom tortoises:
“Xaro looked troubled. “And so it was, then. But now? I am less certain. It is said that the glass candles are burning in the house of Urrathon Night-Walker, that have not burned in a hundred years. Ghost grass grows in the Garden of Gehane, phantom tortoises have been seen carrying messages between the windowless houses on Warlock’s Way, and all the rats in the city are chewing off their tails. The wife of Mathos Mallarawan, who once mocked a warlock’s drab moth-eaten robe, has gone mad and will wear no clothes at all. Even fresh-washed silks make her feel as though a thousand insects were crawling on her skin. And Blind Sybassion the Eater of Eyes can see again, or so his slaves do swear. A man must wonder.”
If Rhaenyra’s three sons were clearly Harwin Strong’s sons rather than Laenor Velaryon, why was Corlys Velaryon such a strong supporter of her claim? Family honor being what it is in Westeros, wouldn’t her probably behavior have humiliated him?
Well, if he was the one who had Harrenhal burned, that could be taking revenge.
And if honor is what it is, there’s also a lot of value in saving face through denial; see Tywin Lannister.
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